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met; by your leave, good mistress. [Kisses her]

PAGE.

Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a

hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we

shall drink down all unkindness.

Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS

SLENDER.

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of

Songs and Sonnets here.

Enter SIMPLE

How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on

myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,

have you?

SIMPLE.

Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice

Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

SHALLOW.

Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word

with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a

tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me?

SLENDER.

Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I

shall do that that is reason.

SHALLOW.

Nay, but understand me.

SLENDER.

So I do, sir.

EVANS.

Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will

description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.

SLENDER.

Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray

you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,

simple though I stand here.

EVANS.

But that is not the question. The question is

concerning your marriage.

SHALLOW.

Ay, there's the point, sir.

EVANS.

Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page.

SLENDER.

Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

EVANS.

But can you affection the oman? Let us command to

know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers

hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,

precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?

SHALLOW.

Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDER.

I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVANS.

Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,

if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOW.

That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,

marry her?

SLENDER.

I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,

cousin, in any reason.

SHALLOW.

Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what

I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDER.

I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there

be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease

it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and

have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon

familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say

'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,

and dissolutely.

EVANS.

It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the

ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,

'resolutely'; his meaning is good.

SHALLOW.

Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDER.

Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!

Re-enter ANNE PAGE

SHALLOW.

Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were

young for your sake, Mistress Anne!

ANNE.

The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company.

SHALLOW.

I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!

EVANS.

Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.

Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS

ANNE.

Will't please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDER.

No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.

ANNE.

The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER.

I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,

sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin

Shallow. [Exit SIMPLE] A justice of peace sometime may

be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men

and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?

Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE.

I may not go in without your worship; they will not sit till you come.

SLENDER.

I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as

though I did.

ANNE.

I pray you, sir, walk in.

SLENDER.

I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my

shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with

a master of fence-three veneys for a dish